Well, after years of fencing and never even seeing a blade break I've now had two broken on me within a week. Last week Travis broke an epee with a big hit to my hand, and this evening Donovan broke one on my arm.
I think I will take it as a sign that I'm getting better. :-p
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
2nd place again
http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=20276&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=83443
SAS Unrated tournament, got 2nd place out of 23. My 6th tournament to date (wait is that right—two MTFC U tournies, BladeFest Vets, Leon Open, RCFC Vets, and this, yep, six) and finally I felt not only comfortable with how things work at tournaments, but like I could get into the right head space (and body space) in the pools—although part of it may have been that I was simply better than most of the people fencing.
Did well in the direct eliminations too, although as time went on it became harder to stay in the fencing head space—especially after longer delays between bouts. Finally lost the final bout, to Craig Haworth, a young guy I had never met before. And since the tournament was for unrated fencers only, despite there being 23 only one E rating was given out, to the person who came in first. I was so close! Ah well.
I mostly used a "maneuvering defensive" strategy, with attacks to the hand (which almost never worked), threats to the foot (ditto), and fleches with feint to 4 disengage to 6 (which worked great against everyone except Craig). Also a variety of defense-based things, like counterattacks and attempts to set traps through setting and breaking patterns, and noting opponent patterns. Also did quite a bit with "broken time" attacks/counterattacks, trying to catch people off guard. And a bit of breaking up larger patterns—like after a lot of slow starts after the call "fence!" I might throw in a fast real attack. All in all, a lot of thinking, which was fun. By the final bout my brain was a little tired of thinking. That's my excuse! No..Craig was good, and he clearly had scoped me out in advance and was prepared for my tricks. And I wasn't able to come up with enough variations on-the-fly to change things up enough to make a difference.
SAS Unrated tournament, got 2nd place out of 23. My 6th tournament to date (wait is that right—two MTFC U tournies, BladeFest Vets, Leon Open, RCFC Vets, and this, yep, six) and finally I felt not only comfortable with how things work at tournaments, but like I could get into the right head space (and body space) in the pools—although part of it may have been that I was simply better than most of the people fencing.
Did well in the direct eliminations too, although as time went on it became harder to stay in the fencing head space—especially after longer delays between bouts. Finally lost the final bout, to Craig Haworth, a young guy I had never met before. And since the tournament was for unrated fencers only, despite there being 23 only one E rating was given out, to the person who came in first. I was so close! Ah well.
I mostly used a "maneuvering defensive" strategy, with attacks to the hand (which almost never worked), threats to the foot (ditto), and fleches with feint to 4 disengage to 6 (which worked great against everyone except Craig). Also a variety of defense-based things, like counterattacks and attempts to set traps through setting and breaking patterns, and noting opponent patterns. Also did quite a bit with "broken time" attacks/counterattacks, trying to catch people off guard. And a bit of breaking up larger patterns—like after a lot of slow starts after the call "fence!" I might throw in a fast real attack. All in all, a lot of thinking, which was fun. By the final bout my brain was a little tired of thinking. That's my excuse! No..Craig was good, and he clearly had scoped me out in advance and was prepared for my tricks. And I wasn't able to come up with enough variations on-the-fly to change things up enough to make a difference.
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